China’s New Mobile Payment Rules Aim to Crack Down on Cross-Border Gambling, Central Bank Says

China’s central bank has issued new regulations (link in Chinese) for the multitrillion-dollar payment sector, in a bid to improve risk control and clamp down on crimes like cross-border gambling that illegally take advantage of payment barcodes to transfer funds.

If strictly enforced, the rules are expected to significantly impact the whole payment industry, especially key players Alipay and WeChat Pay, a senior executive of a payment company told Caixin. The two platforms, separately run by tech giants Ant Group Co. Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., collectively held a more than 90% share of the nonbank mobile payment market last year, according to internet consultancy iResearch.